John and Elizabeth Cunningham moved into 10 Norfolk Court sometime during the short life of their son Johnstone. The family was to live at that address for the next sixty years until the death of Johnstone’s elder sister Jane, aged 77 in 1927. Because the family lived there so long the address turns up on birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates and census returns. So what do we know about it?Well we know it must have been a fairly grim place, even by the low standards of the time. All three children born to John and Christine born after the move died within the first year of life, without medical attendance of respiratory infection. we also know that four of John’s surviving children married spouses who lived within Norfolk Court. In 1879 Mary Ann Bellshaw married Thomas Reid of 8 Norfolk Court and John Cunningham Bellshaw married Jane Moodie of 12 Norfolk Court. William Bellshaw, their elder brother, married Catherine Osborn, of 2 Norfolk Court in 1885 and Elizabeth Bellshaw married James Crandles, also of 8 Norfolk Court, in 1890.
Some of the most interesting information on Norfolk Court comes from census returns, which were collected every ten years. These reveal that in 1881 John and Elizabeth, aged 61 and 50 respectively, were living with three adult daughters and two adult sons in the dwelling, which only only two rooms with windows. By 1891 the parents had passed away, and three of their children had married and moved away. However three of the children were still living there; Jane and Helen who were both to remain unmarried and would live there for many years, and also their sister Mary Ann, now widowed and her son Archie, aged 10. By the time of the next census in 1901 Jane and Helen were living there alone. Jane was still living at 10 Norfolk Court when she died in 1927, sixty years after her parents moved there. Her death certificate was witnessed by her nephew Archie who had lived there as a child.
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